Global Job Satisfaction and Facet Description: The Moderating Role of Facet Importance
Abstract
Summary: Recent research supports Locke's (1976) model of facet satisfaction in which the “range of affect” of objectively defined facet descriptions is moderated by subjective evaluations of facet importance (McFarlin & Rice, 1992). This study examined the utility of Locke's moderated model of facet satisfaction for the prediction of organizationally important global measures of job satisfaction. A large dataset of two groups of workers allowed testing over different time periods and across a broad range of satisfaction measures. The hypothesis derived from Locke's model, that global satisfaction would represent a linear function of facet satisfactions (i.e., facet description × facet importance), was not supported. Instead, a simple (have-want) discrepancy model (operationalized as facet description) provided the most consistent set of predictors. The results suggest that workers, when providing global measures of job satisfaction, may use cognitive heuristics to reduce the complexity of facet description × importance calculations. The implications of these data for Locke's model and directions for future research are outlined.
References
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